Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Review: A high-end phablet contender

When someone is thinking of buying the latest large-screened smartphone, they're probably only considering the Apple iPhone 6 Plus or the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. These two devices have received a ton of attention from the media and marketing departments, which, along with the fact that both devices are very good, explains why they're the first choice for many.

But the phablet market isn't just the iPhone 6 Plus or the Galaxy Note line. There are plenty of other options available. One such option is Huawei's Ascend Mate 7, a six-inch handset that is full of surprises and certainly worth more attention than it gets.

Parts of the Ascend Mate 7 aren't conventional. The Hisilicon Kirin 925 is an SoC I haven't encountered before, and departs from the traditional use of Qualcomm or MediaTek. The Emotion UI atop Android 4.4 is also different from what we usually see, though it could be for the right reasons. Other parts won't surprise you, such as the 13-megapixel camera and 1080p IPS display that keep well within the realms of a standard flagship handset.

The camera and GPU are a real bummer on this device. If those two components were up to snuff, this device would be a serious contender.

It's interesting that the fingerprint scanner works so well, considering that Samsung just can't seem to get this feature implemented correctly. Perhaps they'll take a cue from this Chinese manufacturer and the next round of Galaxy handsets will sport fingerprint scanners that actually function practically.

This is the exact same thing my wireless carrier is trying to push in my face. My phone is due for replacement at the end of Feb and I certainly don't want this, phablets just aren't for me, they're more women's gadgets, I want something in the 4.5"~5" max range so I'll wait and see what the Samsung's A3/A5 has to offer.

Is it not vibrant or accurate? Seriously? I disagree. The photo shots are just sharp, realistic, full of details and not as over-saturated as Samsung devices. And the low light photo shots beats Samsung.

Did you actually compare the camera of this phone with other android flagships? If yes, please name them. As far as I can see, the camera on this phone is comparable or slightly better than the Galaxy S5(better in low light), better than Sony Xperia Z2/Z3s, much better than HTC one M8 and Moto X. The phone also blows iPhone 6/6+ in dust when taking a close object shot - the iPhones just cannot get the object focused in the close distance!

The flagship I would rate that has a better camera than this Mate 7 is the Note 4 with OIS. However other current flagships in the market are either performing at same level or worse in some aspects.

I own this phone since last Nov. The problems of the phone based on my experience are 1. metal body stops implementation of Qi wireless charging technology; 2. missing MHL/slimport feature; 3. normal NAND speed. But the camera, no, I am satisfied. If I must nominate an issue from the camera, well, a bit less capable to capture fast moving object.